Going to college

[minkydog]

Living in Atlanta, I come in contact with speakers of other languages quite frequently. Spanish is the main language due to the influx of Latin American immigrants. I deal with many, many parents of sick children who cannot speak enough English to tell me what's wrong with their child-- . I figure, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

I have enrolled in a 10-wk continuing ed course, Spanish for Healthcare Workers. At the very least it should help me on the job. If all goes well I'll be enrolling for Fall 2006 as a Spanish major. Since I have a BS already all I really have to take are my major/minor classes. They allow you to do an local internship(which i could do at my hospital in one of the clinics) in place of going abroad(not practical for me.) My hospital will foot part of the tuition AND pay me extra once I'm biligual. How great is that!

Woo-hoo! Classes start next week

 

[horseshowmom]

That should be very helpful to you. I've wished many times (working in the school system) that I could speak Spanish (high school Spanish was a long time ago). I've used the English/Spanish dictionaries as well as I could, but of course, that's just a bandaid.

We've had some really sweet hispanic kids come through our system who have worked very hard to try to grasp what was going on in spite of the language difficulty and who have been very patient as we've tried to communicate with them.

We need a course like you're taking (except for educators).

Good luck!